In our third year, the Advertising Advisory Committee (AAC), which provides a consumer perspective to the BCAP code policy work, has continued to advise on a wide-ranging variety of code-related matters and, I am pleased to report, BCAP has, as it did last year, accepted much of our advice.
In the first part of the year, the AAC continued its work of the previous two years on the broadcast advertising of food products to children. The TV content rules came into force towards the end of February; the radio ones followed in December and scheduling changes were introduced for TV in January both in 2007 and again in 2008. We noted BCAP staff have checked compliance with the scheduling restrictions in June and with the content restrictions in July and found remarkably few breaches of the newly tightened Codes. We are disappointed that, to date, the Department of Health has not shared with us its monitoring data on the volume and nature of food advertising to children and hope that in due course it will be made available to us.
Food advertising
In May and August 2007, the AAC considered and advised on BCAP guidance on determining whether a TV HFSS (high in fat, salt or sugar) food ad advertises a food product, not the company or brand, and hence triggers consideration of the recently introduced restrictions. We looked at several advertisements and, surprisingly, found it remarkably difficult to reach a consensus on whether each ad promoted a food product to which the Food Standards Agency Nutrient Profiling model could be applied.
In 2007, we advised BCAP to seek consistency in the regulation of advertisements for lotteries and we are concerned that, despite its best efforts, BCAP has not been able to resolve the matter. We acknowledge the variety of arguments from other regulators but we should like to draw to the attention of all parties the value of consistent protection to children, young persons and other vulnerable people from the risks associated with all types of gambling. On a more positive note, we welcomed BCAP’s draft guidance on three of the gambling clauses in the TV and Radio Codes; we think it should help advertisers to comply with the letter and the spirit of the Codes.
Use of "free"
For several months, BCAP and CAP had been debating the acceptable and unacceptable uses of "free" claims in advertisements and we advised three changes to the policy, all of which BCAP agreed to include in the Guidance Note that it has published jointly with CAP.
In May, we considered and agreed changes to the size restrictions on TV text height to allow for the increasing use of high-definition sets and broadcasts without affecting on-screen legibility. And we have advised BCAP on the changes to the restrictions on sound levels in TV ads to minimise viewer annoyance and allow for advances in measurement techniques.
Throughout the year, we have wrestled with European Directives on three subjects: Nutrition and Health Claims, Unfair Commercial Practices and Audiovisual Media Services. We have given preliminary advice to BCAP on its consideration of how the UK implementation of those directives affects the Codes, a subject to which we shall no doubt return in 2008.
In the coming year, advising BCAP on its Code Review will take much of our time and we look forward to that work. We have already advised on proposed changes to certain sections of the Codes, including harm and offence, faith advertising and ads for legal and other services.
I should like to congratulate my colleagues on the AAC and the staff for their wise counsel throughout the year. I look forward to working with them in 2008.
Elizabeth Filkin
Chair
